


like sunshine after rain

by goodshipophelia



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Jewish Character, Kink Meme, Not Canon Compliant, Yiddish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodshipophelia/pseuds/goodshipophelia
Summary: Even through the glass of the storefront with it's bevvy of smudges from curious noses, this young man stands out.[in which Jacob Kowalski is a mensch, and maybe there's magic in the world after all.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> fill for prompt here: http://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=54475#cmt54475
> 
> first fic in this fandom, unbeta'd, i own nothing, etc
> 
> but you can pry jewish jacob kowalski out of my cold dead hands

He's at the window again. 

There shouldn't be anything special about him; children's wide eyes compete for space in his window displays all day. And who would blame them? Kowalski's has the finest and most fantastical confections in all five boroughs, just ask Mr. Kowalski himself. He's even in the running to make a gingerbread display for Macy's department store, so there, Mr.-Bingley-From-The-Loan-Office, Jacob Kowalski has earned the right to a little ego.

But this boy. Or, not a boy, maybe, a young fella who never had a chance to grow into his gawky height. Again, nothing special, but there's something about him that always catches Jacob's eye when he's behind the till, regaling Mrs. Rosenthal and her brood with the origin story of his latest creation. ('Buzzing Bluebells, you see, with sugar wings on top so fine you think they'll fly right out of your hand, and a stinger made of anise for a little bite') He's miming poking little Chava Rosenthal in the nose, to her shrieking delight, but the young man outside just won't slip out of the corner of his vision. It's like he's a little sharper than everything else around him, bordered in a sort of black line like the cartoons in the newspaper. Even through the glass of the storefront with its bevvy of smudges from curious noses, this young man stands out.

He looks lost, Jacob can't help but think, and hungry. Well, there's always hungry folks in a big city like New York, fine, but on this kid it looks like it goes deeper than just an empty belly. Like a chance to join in the brotherly shoving and teasing from the Rosenthal boys would fill him up just as good as a perfectly flaky Jewelled Cinnamon Snake. 

And Jacob's seen that look before, too. War left a lot of orphans and the 'flu did for more, and he knew Tommies who went marching off with every boy from their village schoolroom and went home alone. So maybe this kid just looks like too many of Jacob's own ghosts. Nothing more than that, surely.

Well Mrs Kowalski, may her memory be for a blessing, raised her favourite grandson to be a _mensch_ whenever he could. And Jacob Kowalski is a successful businessman, now, out of the flophouse around the corner from the canning factory and into a cozy little apartment above the bakery, where he can walk downstairs to work and never get in with hat and shoes already wet and dirty. He doesn't flaunt it, his parents raised him better than that, but when he has a little left over from investing in a new oven and a good suit, he diligently gives to the synagogue's Widows and Orphans Fund, and bakes enough honeycake for the whole congregation for Rosh HaShanah, _gratis_. He's not miser enough to begrudge the occasional pastry somebody can't quite pay for, either, not when there would be no Kowalski's Fantastical Creations without the generosity of a stranger. 

It's a good life, this little life of Jacob Kowalski's. A good life, no question. Just a bit of a lonely one.

So maybe that's why he always notices the young man in the shabby black suit. A kindred spirit of sorts, who has graduated to hanging around the edges of the shop, drinking it all in with poorly hidden wonder. He looks at all Jacob's crazy confections with more than the whimsical indulgence most people show. If Jacob Kowalski didn't know any better, he'd swear this young man looked at his flights of fancy like they spoke a language he'd thought private and personal. Like they made sense.

So one afternoon when the boy's still lingering at closing time, Jacob finally shoulders his complacency aside, and decides to see if there's anything to this connection between them. If the kid looks at him like it's all a bunch of _mishigas_? Jacob David Kowalski has taken worse.

'Hey, kid, you got a name?' he asks, keeping his voice gentle.

And wonder of wonders, the kid looks up. He's all sharp pale edges and big big eyes, the kind that remind Jacob of something he can't quite place, but that always make him think of that Shakespeare play some English fellows bullied him into helping them put on, one weekend the whole encampment couldn't do a lick of rebuilding work with the weather so bad. Mooncalf, he thinks to himself, and doesn't quite know why.

'Credence,' the boy says, 'just Credence,' when Jacob waits for him to provide a family name or something, anything more.

'Well, Just Credence,' and what does Jacob have to lose, really? 'You look like a young man in need of an occupation. Ever worked in a bakery before?'

Credence hangs his head as he answers no, and starts shuffling toward the door just like he has every other time he's come into the shop. But something brave and a little reckless wells in Jacob's chest, and he moves to block the boy's way, hands up like some half-remembered lesson in dealing with skittish animals. 

'That don't really matter, then, since I've never had a bakery clerk before! Or a bakery at all, before this one. So why don't you stay a while, I'll show you a few things, and we can see if you take to it. We can get to know each other, no obligations. Sound alright?'

Credence's 'why?' comes out all cracked and strange, like this is the most conversation the kid has had in a while; like he only sort of remembers how.

'Heck, Credence, why not? I think you might be worth knowing, is all. I think I might like you.' and as soon as Jacob says it, he knows it's true.

And when Credence smiles, it turns out, it sure does feel a lot like blazing sunshine after rain.

**Author's Note:**

> yiddish translations 
> 
> _mensch_ \- a good, upright person, someone who does the right thing
> 
>  _mishigas_ \- craziness


End file.
